Author's note on the subject of procedure:
In order to determine in what regard and to what degree
Greek thought influenced
Christianity, I developed a list of certain criteria that had to be met.
Firstly, the people who initially helped develop
Christianity had to be exposed to
Greek thought and
religion. If there had never been any exposure to
Greek thought, then, obviously, no influence could have taken place.
Secondly, I had to draw many firm, specific correspondences between the fundamental ideas of the
Mystery Religions and the theology of the early
Church. Early
Christianity would never have admitted to inheriting ideas from
Greek Religion and thought, and therefore some detective work was in order. Because the
Mystery Religions were secret by their nature, and much of early
Christianity was hidden from view due to
persecution, it was impossible to clearly see and understand their natures, and therefore comparing their cruxes was impossible. Rather, I had to settle for building a fairly circumstantial case based on the high number of parallels between
Christian theology and rites and the theology and rites of
Greek Religion.
Thirdly, I had to find a need. I had to locate some kind of dissatisfaction with
Greek Religion and thought that would have been answered by
Christianity. If
Christianity by its very nature neatly responded to
Greek problems, then certainly that would a significant point in the argument for a strong
Greek influence. This also required showing why
Judaism didn't fully satisfy
Greek problems, for if it did, then that previous argument would be defunct:
Christianity wouldn't have been necessary because
Judaism would have been an adequate response.
Finally, I had to respond to certain major objections to aspects of this whole idea, the argument for generic
myth. They are very significant, and they had to be addressed because there
are very real issues with some of these conclusions by their nature.
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